


Lazarus

by IamandI



Category: Spec Ops: The Line
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous Slash, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-10 05:40:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2013084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamandI/pseuds/IamandI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You should have passed like a wisp of steam, over and through this place, but instead you linger.</p>
<p>You linger, and wait in every shadow, every pregnant pause.</p>
<p>You haunt me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lazarus

**Author's Note:**

> This started as kind of a What-If sort of thing, and then kind of just kept growing... and well, here we are.
> 
> It's not finished yet... not by any means, but I don't see any updates in the foreseeable future, mostly just because I can't really bring myself to do it, and I feel like I'm just butchering everything. But regardless, here you go: five chapters in one short burst.
> 
> This is all very Lugo-centric because I just love (to torture) him to pieces. Also some pretty heavily implied attraction, or hero worship. Take it how you will, though it might develop into something later if I stop attempting to be classy.
> 
> Let me know what you think.

It’s funny, Lugo thinks later, the way he just loses his will the moment the radio is pulled away from him and the rope drops around his neck. He just stops, just goes limp as he’s dragged to where they’ll string him up like a deer, set him up as a feast for crows. There’s a strange calm in it. He doesn’t even protest when he’s struck in the chest, the ribs, the face, different fists every time. He barely even resists as his broken arm is wrenched behind his back so that both can be tied. He tastes blood, having to breathe through his mouth because his broken nose is gushing like a busted water main. Eyes stare up into the deep, deep blue sky and he thinks to himself that maybe, just maybe he might have a chance. Maybe there’s some small hope that Walker’s going to get there before his neck gets pulled too far and his spinal cord just snaps like a guitar string pulled too tight.

But then he feels it happening. He knows where this is going, and the anger comes, the fear, the pure and abject misery. He thinks of his mother, the faded photograph of memory making her face into little more than a blur, but he can remember the way her hair smelled of lavender, how he skin was soft and warm. He thinks of his father’s granite-carved face… and then he feels something inside of him just slip, and there’s nothing but a cold, dead calm inside of him. He stares out at the crowd, eyes going dark and soft. Doe eyes, a one night stand had told him once, laying in her bed in the aftermath. Big, brown doe eyes.

The crowd is screaming for blood, and all Lugo -- no, John. Just John, now. All John can think is that he’s so tired. He feels like he could sleep forever. Quiet as Christ himself, he’s led while those soft brown eyes just stare up. He is about to feel the drop, and he knows it now. He is lifted, starts to ease down… and then stops. Just stops. The thing that sucks is that he feels it happen, and when he does, he has enough time to change his mind a little, and the way his neck comes to rest is more painful than he’s sure it would have been otherwise.

He’s caught, and he’s kicking because the animal body is frightened, is struggling against the rope that’s suspending him, killing him slowly. It really doesn’t even take much time for him to start passing out… He feels the edges of his vision starting to slip and his eyes turn upward… Like Stephen the martyr, but heaven is not opening for him. There is no son of man welcoming him to take a little trip past the pearly gates. He feels cold, and he is alone, but he’s surprisingly okay with it. It’s better than burning. He knows he would burn.

The darkness that comes is frightening… and then there’s just calm and silence… Nothing really, though he can see what seems like a pinpoint of light ahead of him… Ahead of him. And it feels like he’s growing closer and closer to it, and he wants to go, wants to see what’s beyond that boundary, even if it’s really nothing at all.

Too bad he doesn’t get to see.

The darkness recedes and he finds himself sprawled on the ground, being shaken gently by some great pressure on his chest. He blinks slowly, even though he can’t really make sense of what he’s seeing. There’s suddenly something heavy on him, a deep warmth washing over his chest. He brings a hand up, unable to do much more than that, and feels… stubble, skin. And then as suddenly as he feels that, he’s being lifted up like a bride, almost cradled while he’s being carried to cover. He starts as the gunfire begins, the crack of bullets that he strangely hopes aren’t aimed at the refugees.

Walker speaks to him, voice low, and Lugo realizes, as the man settles down and keeps him cradled close, he is rocking them both gently, holding onto Lugo like a lifeline. He doesn’t mind this, even gently curls in a little closer, not apologetic for anything he’s said and done, but quietly taking refuge in the warm mass of Walker’s body, half conscious, still not quite recovering. With Walker holding him this way, with the gentle rocking, he knows he could easily slip back into unconsciousness, but that might be a bad thing, so he hangs on until everything’s quiet… until his hearing returns and Adams returns, asking first if Lugo is okay. He can almost feel Adams kneeling down behind him, painfully aware of how Walker’s not responding, how he’s clinging, still rocking. He feels Adams lay a hand on the back of his head as he leans in to get a look, gently using the other hand to tilt Lugo’s chin up, look into his eyes, and there’s a line that connects them to one another in that quiet moment. Adams looks somewhat more at ease, but he’s still worried.

Lugo never realized how velvety soft a man’s hands can actually be, or maybe he just can’t quite feels the calluses there. Either way, Walker’s warmth is warming him, and the desert is silent as the rise of gazelle bones out of the hardpan. The moon is rising. He sees the pale hooded eye watching them and finds that if he closes his eyes, he can still see it, in some way… like he’s not quite tied to his body.

“We need to get the fuck out of here.” Adams speaking, quiet and strained. There’s something warm falling on his face, and until he reflexively licks a warm pinpoint that falls on his lips, John doesn’t quite realize they’re tears. Walker is crying. Something he never thought he’d ever see. Adams speaks again, a little more boldly this time. “We need to find somewhere to let him rest, Walker. He’s going to die out here.”

There’s a surge of muscle, and Walker rises like an old horse, clumsily getting to his feet and carrying John like a child, his weapon sandwiched between their bodies. Adams picks along behind, eventually finding the scavenged armor John was wearing before, the battered TAR, carrying the heavy vest as best he can while keeping the tar tucked in against his chest, finger at ready, almost itching to be on the trigger. They meet little resistance as they pass through the refugee camp, make it through and press on into an open stretch of desert leading to where the final push will start. Walker is exceedingly careful, as if John were no more than a bundle of dry twigs, just begging to be broken.

It’s after they lay him down in the shadow of a rock that he begins to lose the ability to keep his eyes open. Walker gently tries to give him water, but when he refuses the pack’s rubber mouthpiece and the little bit of precious liquid inside, the big man does something completely unexpected. He disassembles the whole tattered thing, using pressure and shaking fingers to squeeze a little water out of the container and into John’s mouth. It hurts to swallow. He tries to speak, but the gripping agony it causes is almost too much to bear. He rests limply in Walker’s lap until a warm darkness swallows him up. 

\---

He comes around again, wrapped in what feels like it could be satin. It’s warm and comfortable, and there’s something wet on his lips, something that makes him stick out his swollen tongue to absorb some of it. A sigh of what might be relief comes to his ears, and John opens his eyes to Walker’s tired face, a ratty beard starting and some of his lesser injuries bandaged a bit, starting to heal. The man uses a chipped bowl, tilting John’s head up to feed a little trickle of water past his lips. It’s gritty, but it tastes clean, and John realizes from the heavy smell on the air that it must be rain water. He drinks until he feels nauseous, turns his face, but Walker is quick, doesn’t spill a single drop.

He hears limping footsteps nearby. Adams for sure. He catches sight of the hulking figure, knows that he must be hanging back because he doesn’t expect to see anything good. Walker is quietly smiling, but his eyes are dead, cold. John wants to reach up, but he can do little more than twitch a few muscles, rasp pathetically. Walker is gently laying a warm hand on his forehead.

Some of the light in the room is doused, Adams standing in the way, quietly disbelieving. He comes close to kneel down, close to Walker and it feels like they’re a family again. Everything’s alright. God is in his heaven. John sighs softly and closes his eyes, drifts off to sleep again. He doesn’t wake for a long time after.


	2. Survival

Everything is white.

For a moment, John catches himself thinking he might have just slipped away sometime in the night; thinking maybe, just maybe, everything’s going to be alright, and that the afterlife is being warm, wrapped in some gauzy fabric and occasionally touched by some stranger. Those hands caressing him, oh, he thinks he would give anything for this to be heaven. He was, after all, raised up to be a good Catholic boy, baptized and all that.

Really, in the end, he just knows better. People like him - liar, cheater, blasphemer, sexual deviant, murderer - don’t get to see the pearly gates. People like him tend to get what’s coming to them in one way or another. The next time he opens his eyes, everything is still white, but there is an acrid smell like detergent on the air, the soft pip of machines and monitors, quiet whispers at the door. His throat is scratchy, abused by all manner of mistreatment, some of it medical, doubtless. When he glances to the side, his right arm is elevated, wrapped in gauze and lightly splinted. A drainage tube has been inserted where the doctors surgically joined broken bones, and something foul, originating from the tube, has stained a piece of gauze positioned beneath it. He tries to flex his fingers, and he’s surprised when they grudgingly respond, curling weakly in toward his palm, and then relaxing again, hanging almost limp. 

It’s a good sign, being able to get some movement out of the battered limb. He was initially afraid that it might deteriorate, become useless… maybe even become so infected that it would have to be removed. Thank God for small miracles, really. As if surviving at all hadn’t been enough of a miracle in the first place - though he has to question whether or not that miracle was a blessing or a curse, now.

John lifts his head a bit, attempts to pick himself up, but a slight twist of his broken arm sends a sickening jolt of pain down into his belly, which starts to flip almost immediately. The nausea is overwhelming unlike anything he’s ever experienced before. He falls back into the sheets and pillows, eyes squeezed shut and sweat glistening on his brow, while the soft sound of voices grows closer. A doctor - tall, masculine with distinctly aquiline features - enters, tailed by a pair of nurses - both female, one hispanic, the other white, though both look mousy and plain. All of them seem to swoop in at once, checking things, administering things, speaking in hushed voices… Really, it’s all a little strange to him. He simply observes, though his wounds ache, and his body seems to be doing everything it can to send him back down into unconsciousness.

Morphine washes over him like a warm bath. Pain, anxiety, even some of his spiritual hang ups seem to go right out the window while the glorious drug threads through blood vessels. He’s floating again, warm, and the light seems oversaturated and clean. He thinks he can smell a faint whiff of roses, and realizes belatedly that it must be one of the nurses.

“How are you feeling?” he hears the doctor saying, but when he goes to answer, it’s like his voice won’t come… like someone’s accidentally hit the mute button, and he can’t find the remote to fix it. The doctors smiles a bit, but it’s a sad sort of smile. “Take it easy, now. No need to push it Sergeant. You took a beating out there, so it might take a little while for your voice to return. For now, just relax and let the medicine do its work.”

John nods, despite himself. The doctor leaves. It’s like clockwork, really, because as soon as the white coat is out of sight, John is starting to feel at ease, warm and comfortable. Even though he does his best to keep his eyes open, they just seem to forget to open again in the middle of blinking. His breathing deepens, muscles relax. He drifts off wondering if maybe, just maybe, things might actually turn out okay.

\---

He dreams of a desert, stained red with blood. Hot sparks that burn like little flares pop and sizzle, magnesium white as they drift down to melt sand into glass, as they burn their way through rock, flesh, and bone. Everything seems… alive. Like the desert itself is some vast stretch of skin, buildings rising up ahead like broken ribs, harsh metal voices moaning on and on. The moon gazes down, a blind eye that gives no light to the whole, macabre scene. And John is all alone, stripped of his vest, weaponless, almost as though he’s been laid bare before the decrepit monoliths. Dubai’s ruin, laid out like a fresh deer in the road, still steaming, broken open for crows. 

Oh, what crows may come? John is unsure, picking his way through the rubble until he realizes that something warm and wet is flooding his boots. Too afraid to look down, he keeps staring doggedly ahead, trudging, but the stuff is heavy, and soon, his legs cannot lift, the weight bearing him down until he falls to his knees. As that happens, he can feel it, warm, sticky and thick, grabbing onto his thighs, his hips, pulling at his waist. The sand. The sand is swallowing him.

This time, he looks down, blind panic wresting control of his limbs, but it’s far too late for struggling, now. A part of him knows that he brought this upon himself. Still, the will to survive. He fights, kicking and twisting, clawing at the sand before and behind, looking for something to hold onto, to pull himself up. He finds it, funny enough… something warm, hard in a way that only carved bone and flesh can be. While the sand swallows him, he shakes and trembles, whimpers up to whomever he has his hand on, begging for help.

Darkness gathers. There is a sudden white blaze of light, and a soft voice assuring him that he is safe. Feminine. The smell of roses hangs on the air. He is blind, unable to process what is happening to him, to his body, his mind, and he is still afraid… but something… a sensation, maybe. It brings all of this struggle and blind panic to a halt. There is another hand holding his, not feminine. Cool against the fever burning in his flesh, heavy, callused by abuse… hard in that way that only carved bone and flesh can be. The owner of this hand cannot be the nurse. He hears her footsteps as she walks away, but this stranger stays. He can smell nothing but the perfume, the acrid bleach and detergent, sees nothing but white as the lights flood his vision with too much information. All he can hear is his own breathing, shallow and sharp, slightly wheezing.

The harsh overhead lights suddenly go out, and the haze of burning halogen lifts. There’s a scent. Faint. The dark, masculine musk of another man, sweat - though surprisingly, not the stale variety, and not particularly pungent - and something like spent fireworks… Gunpowder. Blood. A very well concealed scent of burnt flesh. His eyes clear enough to look over at the hulking shape beside him, and the only thing he can think is that Captain Walker looks awfully strange sitting in such a small chair. The man turns his head gingerly, dark blue eyes soften a bit, and he seems to lean in a little closer.

“Go back to sleep, Lugo.” A cooled palm descends to rest against his forehead, and almost instantly, John feels the nostalgia of a time before he knew death. The blurred and time-worn image of his mother comes to mind, and he can’t help the way he just goes limp, the sigh it draws. There are tears, and he notes that they are almost gently wiped away with the pad of a callused thumb. This can’t be his Captain. He’s almost certain of it, even if he hopes against all hopes that it is.

Though he’s afraid of what dreams might come, he doesn’t want to disobey an order. John closes his eyes and lets sleep claim him.


	3. Chapter 3

The next John wakes, he is alone. The arm that was suspended in order to keeps it elevated is now laying at his side, bandaged gently and splinted, but there is no longer the offensive tube draining off infection and swelling. He also notices that he doesn’t feel so terribly overheated, now, and that his breathing seems to come much easier and without much in the way of wheezing. As ever, the machines chirp at him like a menagerie of annoying birds, and as much as he tries to tune it out, he can’t help but look over to watch the screen dutifully keeping track of the rhythm of his heart, monitoring how often he breathes and keeping a scrolling record of his pulse at a fingertip. A few different IV lines stud the length of his left forearm, one placed in his hand, he thinks, probably for fluids alone, and another seated in the crook of the elbow, probably for some sort of nutritional content. When he brings the arm up, he feels along a collar bone, arching up over his chest like a causeway.

It’s been a while, that’s clear enough. Long enough to whittle his flesh down almost to the bone, for the most part. He frowns a little and lets his hand rest against his chest, splayed a bit, turning his head to stare out the window. It’s funny, really. He has no idea where he is right now, but it sure as hell doesn’t like like a city in the desert. Too overcast and industrialized, modern sheen that has been washed over and over by smog and grime. 

Impressive, he thinks. They went to all the extra effort to ship him back to the states and fix him. This must be a VA hospital somewhere in New York, maybe? WTU, maybe. He’d never really done much more than a precursory look into that kind of stuff, but he’s fairly aware that he’s looking at long-term care… and that his career as a military man is over. He’s not sure he minds all that much, though. He made it to Delta, after all. Kind of a big deal, really.

There’s a quiet knock at the door and John turns his head to look, not entirely surprised by the appearance of a young doctor. The guy has the bearing of someone who could be military, and if not active now, certainly trained by the military. He sweeps into the room confidently, and after bustling through his routine and giving an unremarkable introduction with an unremarkable name and title, the stranger glances down to John curiously.

“You’re a special case, you know,” he starts, pulling the bedside chair up close. John tenses at first, but relaxes a little when the man laughs at him, lifts a hand to his forehead, as if disappointed. “I guess that’s not a nice way to start a conversation. But the curiosity’s eating me alive. There were two others who arrived with you, ah… Lieutenant Alphonso Adams, I think, and a Captain Martin Walker. Those two are fine, of course. Adams is in physical therapy for that leg wound, a few other things, too. And Walker, to my knowledge, has been discharged.” The doctor pauses to let that sink in, maybe. He’s watching. The intensity is unnerving, but John makes no move to answer him. Not that he knows if he even can.

He thinks, morbidly, that maybe he’ll be a mute for the rest of his life, and if that’s the case, he’ll really have to go off and finish himself off. What’s life without being whole? He can’t even imagine it, not being able to crack a joke or purr sweet nothings into the ear of a one night stand. The doctor starts talking again, and John perks up, pays attention.

“I’m actually surprised he’s not here,” he observes absently. “The Captain hasn’t left your room for more than a couple of hours at a time since we gave him a clean bill of health.”

He shrugs a little, folds his hands in his lap.

“I’m going to take a wild guess that you know better than to say anything to me… But I guess, unless the Army plans on paying off the staff here, they’re planning on keeping you guys alive. If you need anything at all, let me know. I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you.” John is surprised by his own voice mostly because he suddenly has one when he’d been so worried he wouldn’t… but also partially because it doesn’t sound like him. It’s a little disturbing to him, and he frowns sharply, clears his throat and winces at how much the simple action stings.

“Don’t push it, Sergeant,” the doctor chides gently, “I’m a little pleasantly surprised you could even get that out. Did a lot of damage to all the little moving parts in there, you know… Nothing that needed surgery, mind you, but a lot of bruising and swelling. Lot of things that were going on in there. So just take it easy with the talking.”

The doctor rises, pats a shoulder gently, and then he’s gone, and John is left alone to gaze out the window. He flexes his fingers thoughtfully, left arm dancing as all of the muscles jump to obey immediately. It’s much more subtle with the right, the fingers pulling inward just barely, and he can’t really feel much more than a sudden, paralyzing apathy. He’ll never hold a rifle again. He’ll never be able to do the things he spent so many years working on. All those skills he’s been honing since he was eighteen years old, a skinny, awkward child fresh out of high school. He turns his head limply and stares off out the window until his eyes tire and he shuts them. Dozing comes easy, though John unsurprisingly keeps himself alert, listening just in case the doctor comes back or someone comes in.

Soft footsteps… surprisingly soft, though the tread is definitely that of Army issue boots. At least he thinks that might be what he’s hearing? Or maybe it’s his imagination. Either way, he doesn’t even notice the way his brow furrows up along soft lines worn into his skin by worry and so much stress on the battlefield. The chair by the window creaks softly, and John thinks he can hear it scrape a little closer over the linoleum. But… No. Not yet. He doesn’t want anyone to see him like this, but he can’t exactly deny it when he can feel callused fingers on his throat, tracing down along to the clavicle. He can almost feel the way Walker leans in when he swallows convulsively, when the tears start up again. Walker’s touch vanishes as if he’s been burned.

“Lugo? Are you in pain?”

There’s so much worry in Walker’s voice, and it really doesn’t help the crying situation. John bites his lower lip and shakes his head a little, still afraid to open his eyes. He can hear Walker starting to stand up, so he instinctively goes to reach, his clumsy right hand shaking. He’s surprised by the impressive warmth he finds in Walker’s hands as the man holds gently with both of his.

“Stay,” John rasps brokenly. There’s almost no volume behind it. He can feel the way Walker’s position shifts as he sits again, can feel the indecision and confusion, maybe even a touch of fear. John cracks an eye, and both begin to open as a result… what he sees is a man, bandaged and battered, still, dressed warmly to ward off the chill in the room, though most of it is fairly… domestic looking. The eyes are the same, though… the same, beautiful eyes he remembers looking down into his on the ground in the refugee camp. Even later, stranded in the penthouse of the Burj, he remembers those worried eyes. “You stayed…” he breathes softly, squeezing Walker’s fingers as tightly as he can with his injured hand.

“Yeah,” Walker replies gently, though there’s a hesitation, long and awkward. Fortunately for John, he manages to whip up something better than to say he had nowhere else to go. “Free TV. And besides, you didn’t have anyone else. I couldn’t just leave you all alone…”

He smiles as best he can, then leans forward to gently grip John’s shoulder, holding steady. It’s such a comfort. John smiles a little, covering Walker’s hand with his left, closes his eyes softly.

“There anything you want? Anything at all… I can try and smuggle something in here for you… Girly magazines and shit, right?”

John shakes his head softly, chuckling airily even though it stings a little to do so. He mouths the words, “Just stay,” and then settles back again, watching quietly. He wants so badly to ask Walker if he’s okay… to ask him how he’s feeling and if he’s been sleeping. He wants so badly to ask him if he’s been kicking himself over what’s happened to them, because he doesn’t need to.

He won’t realize, for quite some time, just how much he resembles Walker in his dedication, in his blind worship of someone who saved his life. He may never realize. For now, all he can think of is making sure his hero is comfortable and safe. And there’s something so very wrong with the way that he’s just staring off at nothing at all, so lost in thought, as if he’s been swallowed by some other world, but his physical frame is still tied to this one. John hesitates for a moment, then pulls back just long enough to trip the rails on the bed and push them down, tugs on Walker’s hand. The man flinches a bit, then looks down, smiling as if he’s confused, but the more pressure John creates, the more easily Walker draws closer, until the bedridden soldier has pulled Walker all the way down, wrapping his arms around Walker’s shoulders and cradling him close to his chest.

“Lugo, what are you--” Walker doesn’t finish the question. Instead, he just resigns himself to it, relaxing a bit, though it doesn’t seem like he’s completely relaxed, maybe too afraid to put so much weight on the frail man in bed. He does, however, finally seem to completely relax as the fingertips of John’s right hand clumsily attempt stroke the back of his neck, the left resting gently against a shoulder, fingers tangled in fabric.

There is silence, Walker shifts once, mostly to fold an arm beneath his chest, alongside John’s ribs, moving where his head rests so that the shoulder is bearing most of the weight. John sighs softly, closes his eyes, his fingers stroking, feeling Walker’s warm breath against his chest, feeling the comforting weight of him. It feels good… and it’s enough to lull him into sleep again. 

This time, mercifully, he does not dream.


	4. Undisclosed

There’s nothing, really, to mark the passage of time other than sunrises and sunsets, the occasional change in Walker’s clothing. Eventually, it seems to be less strange to see Walker in civilian clothing, and he seems to look less worn, less tired. Sometimes, even when he talks, he sounds brighter and more relaxed, sounds like maybe some of the wounds Dubai left in his heart have healed a bit. They don’t talk much, usually, thanks to John’s voice being what it is, but it improves daily, and the wounds on Walker’s face and neck begin to heal over.

It’s a late afternoon, and John feels the strength in his spare frame to sit up, beckoning Walker close so that he can dip his fingers into a small plastic tub of cream and gently massage it into the tight scar tissue at the back of Walker’s neck and the side of his head, the curled, plasticky shell of what was once an ear. John massages, and he knows that it brings pain, but he’s aware of how this kind of scarring works. If they don’t try to keep it soft and mobile, it will restrict movement, maybe even crack and bleed later on if it gets too dry. A little pain now to stop greater pain later. John still wishes he could take it all, but his thoughts remain unvoiced, and his fingers move in gentle, dutiful circles, along the corner of Walker’s jaw, almost caressing. He stops.

Walker is always so quick to notice in the physical aspect, but as usual, he can’t read the emotional part, can’t sense anything more than that John has gone stiff, that he should be worried and react appropriately. His lack of perception runs deep. John knows this, and simultaneously, he hates and takes refuge in it. He starts cleaning off his fingers as Walker turns to face him. John even smiles a little as the old warrior tilts his head a little. It’s just when Walker touches his throat that he freezes, stiff and unable to move. Those callused fingers trace the taut line of muscle from jaw to collarbone, hesitating somewhere half way down. John hasn’t seen it yet, but he knows he bears the mark of the rope, and that the scar will haunt him to the grave. His eyes flick up, fix solidly on Walker’s face, and he can see the horror there… the misery. The polished mask is removed, and John realizes just how oblivious even he has been.

No. 

Maybe none of the wounds have really healed at all.


	5. Secrets

If he really particularly has to put his finger on one thing, Lugo has to admit that he hates physical therapy, speech therapy… all these things that remind him just how much he’s lost. The man who once had something to say to anything is now silent as a stone, the legendary aim is shattered along with his bones, his right hand that has withered and become small. He cannot hold a pen, cannot even express his feelings and thoughts, so he has turned inward and become bitter. The therapist meant to fix this and the nightmares and the feelings of anxiety and terror and pain… well, he just doesn’t even look at the man, remains stonily silent, waiting patiently for time to run out so that he can go back to his apartment to chew out his stitches, pushed up into the corner with his pile of blankets and his bared teeth for the whole world to see.

The captive audience that doesn’t even know he’s there.

The medicine they give him does nothing. He dreams at night, a thousand clammy hands wrapping twisted cord around his neck and hoisting him up, each strong tug separating the bones, straining muscle, crushing cartilage. He wakes, and thoughts don’t come instantly. He has to wait for them to return while the animal flesh shakes and pushes him against the cool drywall. Sometimes he thinks it would be easier to finish it, now that Walker is gone, now that he is all alone. Sometimes he thinks he could be strong and brave, that he could actually do it, but most of the time, he ends up alone in a diner, making fractals in the yellow of an egg, the tines of a bent fork rattling bones across grooves in this ceramic silhouette of Europa.

Sometimes there is a pretty waitress, and he tips her over generously, goes outside to smoke bent cigarettes that make his body hurt and watch her work. She is beautiful, and he will never have a thing in his life. Every time it’s the same, and he goes home to lay in bed, rarely sleeping, mostly just counting the stars through his window. There aren’t too many in the big city, and he thinks sometimes he accidentally counts a few twice or three times. Sometimes he just closes his eyes with his withered right hand on his chest, counting heartbeats, thinking of Walker and Adams. He does a lot of counting. A lot more thinking.

Maybe it isn’t much of a surprise to him when it finally happens, but the military shrink’s jaw nearly hits the floor when Lugo finally speaks to him. It’s slow at first, just very normal and quiet, “how was your day,” and so on and so forth… but eventually, he explains how he hasn’t slept in days, how when he does, the dreams wake him, vague and frightening. The therapist is kind, he listens more than he speaks, and Lugo is starting to see that the guy actually understands him. He sees the scarred hands, the old lines and marks of battle that is surprisingly recent. And the man doesn’t take any of this lightly. He offers little more than encouragement, and much to Lugo’s surprise, a gentle touch of approval, something that makes him ache deep in his chest and want more than anything to improve.

There are prescriptions, now… not just for the ache in his bones but the deep, painful ache in his heart and for the phantoms lingering just in the back of his mind, just at the borders of his vision. He goes to doctors and they give him even more medicine, and for a while he lives on nothing but buttered bread and pills, one to the next. He drinks a lot, at first, but needs it less and less later, finds he only really bothers with liquor on the odd occasions when he can be bothered to be social. His therapist suggested the social calls. He said it would be good for him… and in a lot of ways, it is doing him plenty of good.

Some of the pills become obsolete. His arm improves and his body begins to harden again as he starts to work out, building back the muscle mass he’s lost during his convalescence. He runs, works out in private, sleeps with his pistol in the dresser, now, and not under the pillow where it used to be. He still thinks of Walker some nights, laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling fan that draws out memories Dubai, the helicopter crash, but the more he talks to the therapist, the less it seems to really bother him. 

The man looks heavier now, not physically, but mentally. And one day, Lugo tells him as much, leaning across the desk with his gravelly voice - the one that he still doesn’t quite recognize as his own - and his soft brown eyes filled with emotions he is slowly starting to understand.

“Who’s the therapist now?” the man asks patiently, smiling wearily over wire-rimmed glasses that look impossibly delicate on his chiseled granite head. His eyes are quick and gray, flinty. He’s less greek god and more mountain, but he still reminds Lugo of Walker in a lot of ways. “We should focus on you, John. I want you to keep improving… I want to see you succeed. Have you been looking for a job?”

“No.” It’s soft, almost absent minded, and he laughs a little on the tail end, shakes his head. “I’m not going to be much use to anyone until I’m… whole again, I guess.”

“Even if you’re just doing data entry or bagging groceries, I’m telling you, John… it’ll be a world of good for you.”

“I want to hold a gun again…” he whispers, and it’s a strikingly painful admission. He feels his throat locking up, his eyes stinging before he even really thinks too much about it. “I want to go back. It’s all I’m good for, now. You can’t… cross that line and expect to come down, be domesticated again. Maybe… you know a little of what I’m saying, man, but I’m telling you… the shit I’ve seen… the shit I’ve been through? It’s not something you can really entirely put behind you.” Lugo stops for a moment, then gently, slowly, he leans across the desk again, meets that sharp gray gaze evenly. “I’ve already told you so much… would you like to know what really happened in Dubai?”

There’s a long moment of silence.

“If it will help you, John. I’m just as bound by my duty as you are. I can’t talk. But here, you can say whatever you want as long as… as long as it’s going to help you. Maybe it’s time to let it go.”

Lugo listens, and the way he softens, the way he seems to sober and really focus on this man who is trying to help him. He smiles softly, shakes his head and looks down to the glossy surface of the desk, drawing little patterns with the tip of his finger. With very little preamble, he begins. It’s oddly like watching a movie in his mind as he simply scrolls through the memorable events one by one.

The ambush and the call for help. The nest. American soldiers. The CIA and their war. The refugees. The Radio man. Phosphorous. Madness, and the descent deeper and deeper into it, eternally seeming to go down into the bowels of the city. He closes his eyes forces his way along to the moment the noose was tied around his neck, but it becomes too painful, and he falls silent. For a long time the two of them remain there in silence. The therapist is the first to speak, low and soft.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be… I’ve never really told anyone anything before. And… it helps.”

And the rest of the visit - a whole fifteen minutes left over from an hour, so it surprises him just how little time the whole event took, how small a thing it seems, though it has changed his life so irreversibly - they sit in complete silence. The secretary is the one who breaks the silence, tight as canvas and strict, but not unfriendly, perhaps airforce. She is soft, he thinks. Yes, perhaps airforce. He shakes the therapist’s hand gently, then leaves. If only that feeling of lightness would stay. Out in the real world, people aren’t so accepting, willing to give praise.

Lugo does what he does best, vanishes into the crowd, pulling the hood up on his plain sweater and hiding his scarred face, weaving in and out of columns of human bodies that march in either direction for miles. It’s drizzling when he finally makes it back to his apartment. He opens the door and slips inside, feeling some of the tension slip away.

He draws a bath and sheds away his clothing, huddles quietly in the tub, feeling silly because he is simply too large to really fit properly. He runs the shower hot, the loud clamor of water on water and hot steam that soaks the pain out of his bones and replaces it with merciful numbness. He’ll sleep tonight, he thinks.

That’s always a good thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last one for now... Let me know what you all think... maybe I'll find direction for this abomination. :'3


	6. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I lied... here's another chapter, fresh off the press...

John has never known true frustration before there was Ikea furniture in his life. For most of his adult life, he’s lived out of an air conditioned self-storage unit and any number of friends’ couches between deployments, mostly because he was deployed so often to help with the efforts of the whole “war on terror”. While it continues to rage - and just gets worse and worse - he’s busy trying to figure out how the hell to get this metal screw to fit into a little metal rod, something that will hold the entire bed frame together. It’s definitely a two-person job. He curses and snarls now and again, but finds some kind of comforting solace in the sound of the dryer as it tumbles sheets and duvet covers somewhere off in the cramped utility closet. It’s steady and repetitive. Something he can count on. He waits fifteen minutes at a time, then resumes his frustrated activity to no avail. No dice.

With a loud curse, he flops to the floor, glaring at the inconsiderate furniture for a moment, before the headboard is gently pinned into a better position. He smiles, goes right back to it with a soft murmur of thanks. The neighbor next door is a nice girl. She’s seemed to take a shine to him since he first got dumped in the empty space, occasionally coming over to help with something, or feed him a little left-overs whenever he looks particularly hungry. But the voice that politely answers is not a woman’s. It’s heavy with some lingering regret, surprisingly light for the great frame it proceeds from. John tenses up hard, then settles again, feeling a little tension bleed out of his spine. He continues with his work, perhaps a bit more rushed than before. When he tries to stop at that corner, his guest shakes his scarred head and points to the next. Bit by bit, the bed emerges from a flurry of pine slats and wooden pins, metal rods. John drops the mattress in, and then he sits down, feels the springs creak as the visitor settles next to him, close, but not close enough to really matter.

“I let myself in…”

“I gathered that,” John murmurs, wanting terribly to break down the invisible wall between them, but having little excuse to do so. He remains on the other side of his glass cage, sending over the occasional wanting glance.

“You look better.”

“So do you.”

It’s awkward. Painfully awkward. Lugo knew how to fill an uncomfortable silence, but John is just at a loss, grasping at straws in his own head where he’s trapped and running in circles. He fumbles a start, shakes his head, finds that he’s caught in the middle of gesture, but stops, whipcord taut and shaking a little as Walker’s huge hand gently slides beneath his right arm, examining the long scar that runs nearly from elbow to wrist. It’s still raised and puckered, fresh and pink against the golden olive backdrop of the rest of his skin.

They remain that way for a long time, Walker’s rough thumb gently brushing over the highly sensitive skin, warm because that’s the way Walker has always been. As always, John is still too wrapped up in his own head, still stuck ascribing things where they shouldn’t and never will be. He breaks away suddenly, jumping up to pull on a shirt and turns, standing awkwardly by the hamper in which his entire wardrobe resides. He thinks for a minute, trying to find a way to justify the sudden movement, clears his throat.

“Well, you’re here now, so let me go get us a couple beers… we can… talk.”

Walker seems reticent, shifts a little. “I’m on these… medications, so maybe it’s not a great idea--”

“I never really gave a shit and I turned out fine.” John winces mentally at how insensitive and revealing the comment is, but bustles off anyway, grabs a couple beers out of the fridge - which has little else in it - and brings them back, setting them on top of the box where his newly minted coffee table still remains, waiting to be assembled. Both of them remain in silence for a little while, but it’s Walker who snorts a little first, and John just joins in with a frantic little giggle that turns into real laughter when Walker can’t seem to hold it in anymore. There’s a little twist of pain in his chest, now… that smiling face, even as badly scarred as it is, is something that will remain with him for the rest of his days.

“Classy,” Walker remarks gently, though he obviously doesn’t seem to mean it.

“Motherfucker,” John chuckles, “If I didn’t keep things classy, who the fuck would? I am the classiest guy you ever met.” He swaggers a little closer and settles on the bed again, keeping his distance, perhaps, but still a little closer than they were before, noting the way Walker’s eyes are still on him, the way they linger, like he’s looking into a photograph of his childhood home. The knife twists in his gut. He reaches out and places a hand on the big man’s shoulder, sobering a little. “You came back.”

“I guess… free TV isn’t going to be a good excuse this time…” Walker admits quietly. “I wanted to know you were okay. I’m glad you are.”

“I’m not,” John sighs, quite suddenly. “Neither are you. We’re here… but something’s changed. I know you can feel that, so don’t bullshit me.” Maybe it’s a little harsher than he intended, but it gets the job done. Walker looks down, eyes soft and unfocused. “Tell me you’re seeing someone… Please tell me you’re at least doing that. I need to know you’re getting better.”

He nods slowly, but theres a distinct air of guilt to it, like he’s not saying something that needs to be said. John nods slowly in return, gripping a little tighter. 

“It’s okay if you don’t want to say anything,” he reassures gently. “Hell, you get past all the bullshit eventually and just talk, and everything… it just feels better. I swear, the hurt actually goes away.” But he knows things are different for Walker. Walker isn’t the type of guy to give up so easily. He’s introverted and keeps his insecurities on the inside. Even if he’s seen that he was deluded in Dubai, he still can’t get out of his head enough to really quell the illusion. John is on the edge of his seat, frowning sharply, noting the lost expression. 

“Martin…” The name feels so strange on his lips, but it fans the embers of something he’s been dying for. Intimacy. “Martin, look… Look at me.” No response.

John grabs a heavy hand, draws it to his chest, shaking a little because he’s not even sure this will work… He’s not sure how this could turn out, and the unknown is something he’s never entirely been fond of. He holds Walker’s palm flat over his chest, right above his heart, knowing that he’ll feel, if nothing else. Walker lifts his heavy head, expression heavy with worry that furrows up his brow, draws his lips into a hard flat line. His fingers grip a little, reflexive, and John tightens for a nervous moment, relaxes just as quickly.

“I’m here,” John breathes softly. “This is real. It’s actually happening. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“I would lie to me,” he replies just as quickly, but seems sorry to have said it the moment he does. He shakes his head, lets it drop. John persists, though, and just as he did in the hospital, back when he still felt like he had some ounce of boldness left, he reaches out and tugs Walker in, feels him go soft in his arms like so much putty. John thinks of a great big ragdoll cat, holds the man as best he can, realizing that he’s withered some… lost a little of that bulk that made him seem so colossal. There’s something more hollow, more worn out than there was before, and the realization hurts. “I should leave,” Walker mumbles into John’s chest, but there’s no effort to pull away, no attempt to break it off. “You’re doing fine all on your own…”

“What if I don’t want you to leave?” There’s a gentle sort of patience in his tone. John sighs, and carefully, he eases them down onto the mattress, still holding gently. There’s something very innocent in all this that soothes any worries he may have had before. He strokes gently at the soft hair that laps over tight scar tissue, losing his fingers in the overgrowth. Where it comes in thicker, it’s coarse like a dog’s fur. The texture is familiar and comforting on his fingertips. “No, you’re going to stay right here… at least until morning. Christ, I’ve been worrying about myself for so long, it might be nice to keep an eye on someone else.”

The room falls silent, though it’s not uncomfortable. Off in the distance, the dryer tumbles on, and slowly but surely, he feels the last residual tightness bleeding out of Walker’s massive frame, feels breaths deepen and lengthen until there’s no doubt that he’s drifted off. Still, John doesn’t move for some time, just thinking, existing until the dryer announces that it has finished up with its work, and John gently unwinds himself, leaving Walker for the time being while he gets everything that was in the dryer folded. He stuffs the duvet back into its cover and gently wraps Walker in the warmed fabric, settles in to finish building the rest of the furniture. He has no idea what he’s getting himself into, but at least he’s confident that it will all work out in the end.


	7. Open Door Policy

While the city slumbers like a great, sloshing bucket of snow, John is a ball of energy, a steady stream of frantic activity in the apartment, focused on the sound of the lift bar as it groans with each vigorous pull. His shoulders fall, then rise, fall again, rise. His knees stay tucked, and muscles strain with each renewed tug. There’s something he’s learned about being active, staying toned and perhaps working into better shape than he was ever in before, because there’s not much else to do in the soundless hours between two and six in the AM. He feels the deep and constant ache in his right arm where the bones still try to fuse, where torn muscle has mended, and knows that he’s only growing closer to a final end.

Beneath a pile of unsorted personal belongings in the closet, the case is heavy with milled and meticulously machined metal, the surprisingly durable textured sides of a poly stock and an ammo can laden with rounds classed as “anti-material” though they’re just as adept at punching armor as human flesh. It was something he’d bought with his first real surplus of cash, and now settles unused. He knows he needs to clean it soon, needs to get down inside and lubricate the little inner workings, check for any wear and tear, check for the little changes that time imposes when such things are left to languish. He’s worried about rust. The storage unit felt a little humid.

Shoulders rise and touch the metal bar, fall again, and this time he lands on his feet silently, body glistening with fresh sweat, feels it drip off of his chin onto the gentle swell of muscle at his chest. He breathes steady, keeping his body under strict control, and finally starting to recover a little, glancing over his shoulder at the lump in his bed, still tucked in tight as though he’d never moved at all. His empty boots stand at the bedside, and John thinks it’s kind of a surprisingly swell thing to see. He watches for a long moment, then falls right back into the routine, dropping to start push ups and any number of other things that may follow.

Time flows. He looks to the alarm clock sitting on his freshly assembled night stand, and thinks it seems an awful lot later than four in the morning. He rolls up to sit from crunches, divests himself of clothes and slips into the shower. Hot water, he thinks, is probably man’s greatest achievement after gunpowder. The cold tile feels good on his forehead, and he just leans, lets the warmth soak over his back and work the deep tension out of his muscles. There’s little to suggest any movement on the other side of the curtain but a minor flutter, and John takes the time to push the curtain just barely out of the way enough to see Walker arched over the sink, peering into a tired reflection in the medicine cabinet’s door. He touches his jaw here, pulls at the bruise colored skin beneath an eye there. Clearly he’s not impressed by what he’s seeing. John lets the curtain fall back.

“You even dare try to take a shit, and I will make you regret being alive.”

There’s a shocked moment of silence, and then Walker snorts mirthfully. “Wouldn’t dream of it. You’d never forgive me.”

“Damn skippy, I wouldn’t. Fuck, I might have to return the favor.”

There’s a long silence, and John knows exactly what’s being implied, feels his heart sink until it seems to have nowhere else to go, wallowing around in the pit of darkness he carries inside him. Already, in his mind’s eye, he can see Walker staring through his own reflection, trying to think of how to say goodbye. It’s something he’s terrified of, and he thinks he always will be.

“Lugo--”

“Call me John. We’re on better terms than that.”

He can almost hear Walker trying desperately not to feel just how much weight such a statement holds, trying to turn off the instant guilt, the roiling despair and self-loathing he’s built up around himself in such a short time. John has to resist the urge to put his fist through the tile, because he’s awfully nervous that there won’t be drywall and pipes in the dark that hides just beneath. Flesh as insulation, each tile as a single scale on some terrible serpent’s hide, boxing him in, getting tighter. The punch comes and it sends a fiery jolt up through his shoulder, into his chest. 

The coppery scent of blood rises on the steam, and Lugo watches red run in perfect little symmetrical paths along the grout until they hit a flat spot. Chaos is everywhere, a constant, painful presence in a life he’d hoped would be so structured and unsurprising. Pay raises, bad guys dying… a funeral here and there. Weddings, kids… maybe a bitter divorce down the road and a second wife for whom he would feel nothing at all. All of these things were so guaranteed before the bombs started falling and the whole world changed, turned upside down with him still trapped behind the wheel. At least he always thought he had the wheel, but it’s seeming more and more like life handed him a paper plate and told him to pretend. It’s insulting.

And so is the notion of Walker just marching right back out of his life again… leaving him all alone in this the way Adams did, but at least Adams had the goddamn courage to say goodbye and not come stumbling back, sloppy with grief.

There’s only five feet between them, but they may as well be as close as Andromeda and the Milky Way. The course is set, and they’ll eventually collide, but Christ, if it doesn’t feel like it’ll take millions of years to actually happen.  
It’s not John or even Lugo that speaks. Instead, he can hear his father echoing in the back of his mind, and it twists the knife in his back, starts the terrible heartbleed.

“If you walk out that door, Martin, don’t let it hit your ass, and you never come crawling back, you hear me? You leave, and you’re done. We won’t run into each other. We won’t wonder how we’re doing. We’ll go our separate ways and never see each other again, you hear me? You will never see me again.” He grinds his fist into the tile and feels the pain shoot up his arm like fire comes back to the gas can. He can feel the deep heat of hate searing at his guts. It wouldn’t take much.

There’s a long silence, and eventually, he feels something about the room just change, and then, he thinks, Walker has gone. The pressure’s gone. The hate, the adrenaline… even the water seems to have lost it’s heat, and all that’s left is the deep, hollow ache of bones that have barely healed, split knuckles that ooze blood. It looks like a smear of cinnabar on the off white tile, brings out the warmth of the white, though the room holds no heat. John sinks down into the rain-shimmer at the bottom of the tub, folding in on himself and hugging his knees, not minding that he’s getting a face full of water, mostly because he barely feels it. He remains there until the water goes cold and muscles start to seize up feels more than he hears the way his teeth clatter together every now and then between breaths.

There seems to be no end to it. He’s alone… only, the water turns off, and a towel drops around his shoulders. He feels heavy hands roughly rubbing the moisture out of his overgrown hair, feels the way strong arms sort of just pluck him up out of the enameled wallow he’s set up for himself, and there’s perhaps a worn sigh as his knuckles are examined. The towel continues its relentless march downward, and there’s little if any hesitation, like this is something those heavy hands are used to. Lugo has his eyes shut because he’s afraid. They only open when there’s a sudden sharp bite that can only be alcohol.

Martin is standing there in a thin T-shirt and a working man’s jeans, gently dabbing the bloodless split with a cotton ball, a sandwich bag full of gauze, adhesive bandages and surgical tape caught between his teeth. He still looks like he’s seen better days, but the look in his eyes is almost… domestic, really.

“You’re an idiot,” he admonishes without any real force behind it. “And if I were a girl and I saw that pathetic little thing, I’d head for the hills.”

“Fuck off,” Lugo grumbles, but where once there would be action, there’s just puzzled silence. He watches Martin work. “Water got cold.”

“Sure.”

“All due respect, but fuck you, Walker.”

“Martin,” he corrects, almost matter of fact. “I’m not your Captain anymore.”

There’s a long silence, and Martin tries again, smirking a little as he gently smooths tape over gauze. “Ever seen a razor before?”

“Jesus Fucking Christ, are you sure you’re not gay?” Lugo sneers a bit, but he’s smiling behind it. There’s no need for posturing here, but it seems to come just as natural as breathing. “Some women like it, you know.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure most women wouldn’t want to see the wolverine you’ve got growing out of your ass…” Martin jabs. “You’re half my size and twice the jungle, John.”

The name seems to roll so easily off of his tongue. And just like that, he’s off to do… well… whatever it is he does, and Lugo goes back to being stuttering, stammering John, not sure what to make of all this and struggling with whatever the hell it is he’s going on in the back of his head. The ribbing he understands. The joking and mockery. The total relaxation even though he’s wearing no more than his own skin in front of the guy. This is something he’s used to, but there was always an emotional distance whenever shit like that happened before. This is just… weird. He shudders hard, and squirms.

“So you’re one hundred percent sure you’re not gay?”

“I’m not the one trying to smoke some pole every time I get a chance.” The burn is real. John’s face screws up into deep scowl.

“Man, fuck you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might be the last little bit for a little while.
> 
> We're back and forth between projects, but it isn't abandoned by any means.


	8. In the Dark

It’s a Sunday night, and John busies himself with the familiar toil of organizing. The collection of things in his living space only seems to grow as he goes out, finds things he likes, brings them back in paper bags or plastic, hauls boxes up three flights of stairs in order to dissect them and put their contents on display. He is a man raised by men, but since his father had been so spartan, John was the one to pick up the slack, filling the house with small objects, putting together bookshelves and watering house plants. Before he’d gone off to the military, he’d made their empty house in upstate New York look more like a home and less like a cell. Now he’s at it again.

He gently uses a spoon to pack fresh soil onto the roots of three newly planted succulents of various shapes and sizes, then gently lays down a little gravel to provide some insulation, setting the bowl up on a window shelf so that they can get enough light. He’s taken a liking to the little cactuses and odd plants that he’s been collecting over the last two weeks, has learned the hard way not to water them too often. The first was a tragic casualty, but he’d learned, and now the second and all the rest that followed after it crowd for space in the windows of the kitchen and living room. He checks them each, one at a time, then waters the ones that need it, settles everything back into place before he cleans up. The potting soil gets sealed up and put back into the closet on the balcony, and he rolls up the whole mess contained on newspaper, pushes it down into the bottom of the trash and washes his hands. A job well done…

Martin seems nonplussed by all of the sudden decoration. Plants, pictures… paintings here and there. They’re not things he expected to see in this place… least of all expected John to be so invested in, but he has to admit that it really brightens things up. He gently smooths the corner of a rug before coming into the living room to sit in the plush red armchair that stands out rich and crimson, matching an area rug that really does make the room more pleasant. John seems to understand that even as nice as hardwood can be, a rug really makes a room feel better, softer on the feet and more comfortable to sit on, on the odd chance than anyone ends up on the floor. He still seems massive… built too thick for conventional furniture, and John has to laugh when he returns, smudged with dirt, his dark eyes full of a smile that’s both on his face and in his heart.

It’s a comfortable relationship they have. Martin seems to have little desire to do much beside remaining nearby, and John hosts him graciously, pooling their resources and making sure both of them are fed, medicated, have a place to sleep. He’s exceedingly efficient at it, even manages to have time to look for a job in between. The evenings are always thus: John finding some small job to keep him occupied, and Martin watching, keeping an eye on him and occasionally providing conversation when the mood calls for it. They will remain here, he knows, until John feels it’s an acceptable time to go to bed, and even though there is a comfortable couch, a spare bedroom, they will climb up onto the same queen mattress, Martin close to the wall, and John spilling over the edge, and they might say a few words here and there… but usually they say nothing at all, remain carefully packaged each on their side of the bed.

John slips to the kitchen to clean up and make coffee. Their routine. He knows what’s to come, knows that it’s patiently destroying his soul. Bit by bit, he loses something of his original feelings, and he fears what it might lead to. He brings Martin the mug that seems so small in those big hands, but instead of the usual hand-off, this time he brushes skin, almost a caress. When he talks, he lets the real feeling into his voice, avidly watching the expressions on Martin’s face as he replies, noticing the amused curiosity he wears whenever he notices just how he’s being scrutinized.

It’s late when they decide to retire. John undresses and slips into a pair of flannel pants the way he always does, waits for Martin to strip down to his thin t-shirt and boxers. He gently applies the cream that must be used every night to try and heal Martin’s terrible scars, and then it’s the usual shuffle, Martin’s huge frame displacing the blankets and sheets, his particularly medicinal scent hanging on the air, though nothing can block out the heavy musk of his skin. Lugo settles in, wriggling beneath the flat sheet as he always does, and the light goes out.

Tonight, there is silence, and John strains his ears, fingers gripping in the sheets while he listens to Martin breathe, slow and steady, the warmth of his body still carrying even though they are separated by a fairly great distance. When he curls a little to press his cheek against the mattress, he can hear the faint thunder of a heartbeat, one that sets his own to racing.

No matter how much he has done to try and squash it, no matter how much he has attempted to be civil and quiet, keep himself in line, he finds that it’s only his sense of self that seems to drown. He finds that loving Walker - whatever kind of love it may be - is like breathing, and he fears with everything in him that if he ever stops, he’ll end up dead in the worst sort of way.

He only sleeps for three hours, and he’s up again, constant motion, wearing himself out and showering so that he can slip back into bed again. Martin doesn’t seem to dream much these days, as if, perhaps, he is finally starting to open up to his therapist, starting to get past some of the things that haunt him. John honestly hopes that’s the case… he needs to know that they can both really survive this.

He returns to their room, settles on the bed again, checking his phone just on impulse and sees a text, smiles because it’s the closest thing he’s gotten to a reply in what feels like months. Adams is succinct, as always: “Austin.” John replies quickly, hoping maybe the next reply won’t take so long to get to him.

“Maybe I’ll visit.”

He puts the phone down and settles back into bed, feeling a little more courage than perhaps he should. He crosses the invisible boundary that has always separated them and presses his lean body into impressive veil of warmth wrapped up in Martin’s blankets, in his space. He does not move… does not make a single noise as John presses himself close. He’s a little surprised by this, thinking that there would be at least some sort of complaint… and he realizes a bit too late - as a heavy hand awkwardly positions itself on his shoulder - that perhaps Martin is awake.

They remain for a long time, John still too afraid to move, not sure what to do with himself, and Walker is a solid stone wall, almost completely backed up against the wall. John realizes that just maybe this isn’t something he should push… that perhaps he got a little overzealous. Lugo kicks into high gear. Time for a good excuse.

“Fuck, I’m sorry… fucking half asleep…” He starts to pull away, but finds that Martin is slipping an arm around him, dragging him down into the heady warmth of his being. Lugo slips away, and only John remains… He feels the memory more in his limbs and his heavy chest than in his mind, heart thrumming like a well tuned engine while Martin pulls him close and just holds him. They could be back in the sands, they could be right there, right now, and it wouldn’t feel any different. John closes his eyes and shivers softly, holding abstractly at a shoulder, Martin’s muscular back. Each breath between them, every heartbeat… John is a mess, and Martin is distant, withdrawn, and yet he is right here, holding, lowering his heavy head, scruffy chin scraping softly against bare skin, John’s hardened shoulder, but he just seems to melt, lips parting, but before he can say anything he might regret, Martin is gently rolling onto his back, pulling John in close beside him, but there is little if any suggestion of what might have happened only moments before.

“Go back to sleep,” he murmurs softly, and John, though he’s flustered and flushed, grasping at thoughts, just curls up against him, not even worrying about being too clingy. It’s not hard to fall asleep like this, and it’s a good, solid sleep for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... I'm feeling not so classy.


	9. Mentira

The weeks are full of awkward passing, the occasional run-in that reminds John of just how much has been laid out on the table. He tries not to make eye contact, keeps himself constantly busy. He tries to find himself a job with the fervor of someone who actually needs one, and tries to make sure that he is completely engrossed in a book whenever he has any spare time. One of the succulents dies in the next week following their awkward congress, and he has to fight back tears, not for the dead plant, but for the sheer stupidity of the situation. He holds the wilted little plant in his hands over the sink and fights to keep his composure.

“We can… have a little funeral or something, if you want?” Martin is confused… almost definitely worried, but John can see the blank look, the way he has no clue what’s going on. His heart wrenches and he slips past, throws the plant in the trash and storms out to the balcony. There is a pack of cigarettes, so he cracks it open and smokes. He doesn’t stop with one. It just continues on and on, one bent paper tube at a time. He burns his fingertips on the last, regards the pack with a cold anger and throws it over the balcony railing, stewing in his own burning self-hatred.

He can’t admit these things. These are things that men like him simply do not talk about. This is something he is certain about because he’s lived with it for so long… from the very beginning, his father had told him not to indulge these thoughts, and later, when he joined the army, the policy was always the same.

The door slides open, and John is ready to snap. He feels his persona shift, feels Lugo burning hot just beneath the surface as he turns with his teeth bared, only to end up scowling miserably at the girl next door. She waves awkwardly while he wilts into his seat, turns to face the expanding skyline again.

“I heard one of your little cactuses died…” she states quietly, settling herself in the chair next to John’s, placing a soft hand on one of his. He almost pulls it away, almost draws away because this just isn’t what he wants, even if the whole world wants him to be one way or another. He lets her hold, lets her fingers gently slide into the gaps between his own, but she is not hard in the way only carved flesh and bone can be. She is not the one who pulled him from the mire of mistakes, brushed the sand off of his shoulders.

“Yeah… I kind of lost it a little,” he admits, “Walker grabbed you?”

“He was worried,” she explains carefully. Sandra, he remembers. That’s her name. Sandy. She told him to call her Sandy. She has a voice like the wind in dry leaves, high, but roughened a little, like she’s constantly hoarse. She laughs like the sound of a wind chime. He thinks he would never be happy, but maybe he could pretend to be.

“He… has every right. We’ve been through some shit.” He thinks for a moment, then gently turns his hand over, letting her lace her fingers in with his, letting her lean a little closer. There’s something in her eyes that he can’t resist. She’s a school teacher. Twenty-seven years old, a virgo. He likes her, but he does not feel it in his heart when turns a little to caress her cheek, to brush a wisp of straw blond hair out of her soft green eyes. He feels nothing at all. “It’s all kind of complicated…”

“I remember… you can’t talk about it,” she replies gently, but her cheeks are flushed a little. She’s been holding back for a long while now. John knew from the start. There had been so much ample opportunity, but he’d never taken it because she is pretty and well adjusted, kindhearted. He didn’t want to break the spell, but now here he is, taking that bait, trying to convince the world at large that he is something he is not.

“There’s… a lot I can’t talk about,” he admits with a distinct sense of guilt, but her hands are on him now, cradling his unshaven jaw and she shakes her head, and he realizes that she’s not asking for anything at all… not asking for any explanation or stories. She is simply accepting, taking all these things into account.

Her lips are soft and honeyed with some flavor he can’t quite recognize… something that reminds him of soft candies from his youth. He arches into it, a hand brushing the gentle bend at her waist. She is plain.  
He almost feels Walker making himself scarce.

The events move like a riptide. He doesn’t fight it, just lets it pull him down where it’s quiet and there is no thought, only the dark crush of breaths and beating hearts. There is no feeling. Only a cold emptiness in the pit of his stomach and the beg for physical pleasure building at the base of his spine, driving hungry hands and hungrier lips.

She is not that pretty, but he isn’t much of a looker himself, so he thinks it all balances out in its own way. He breaks for long enough to lead her to the bedroom. Martin is not there like he almost hoped in some sick, twisted part of his heart. The bed is vacant, still messy. He smells Martin on the sheets when they fall in, a controlled descent, breaking through into a whole different atmosphere.

She is not very graceful, and there is a marked desperation in the way she moves… as though she is compensating for something, but John is as patient as he is gentle. He makes sure he doesn’t reveal a single second thought, spending time on gentle worship, coaxing her into believing in herself just that little more before they finally meet. She holds to him as if he were the only one she has ever had… and he feels as empty of breath and soulless as the staring eyes of a trophy deer.

He makes sure she is satisfied, and then rolls aside, pulls up the covers around them. Her hands are soft while she traces hard lines. There’s something in her eyes that is so sweet and sincere, but he cannot mirror it.

Walker sleeps on the couch in the spare room, and John can’t help but wonder if he feels the same painful loneliness that he’s feeling now.

He sleeps. In the morning, he makes coffee, and Sandy stays around, laughing and talking well into the afternoon before she finally leaves with a gentle parting kiss. There’s something in the way she moves, the brittle smiles, that makes John think she knows, no matter how hard he’s trying to hide it. She says she’ll drop in again soon, and John is not opposed to the idea. He cares for her as a friend, as a confidant even if he’s never really said more than a few fleeting words to her about his past. He’ll give her everything he can, but he knows what he has to give won’t be enough.

In her wake, he sits quietly in the living room, his hands folded in his lap and an empty terracotta pot sitting on the glass coffee table, staring up at him, almost lovesick in its emptiness. Martin passes through the room like a whisper, but no words are exchanged.

Lugo gently pushes on the shapely lip of the pot, watching it teeter on the edge, clinging until it falls and shatters into a thousand pieces.


	10. Revolving Door

The following week is awkward. The two men try to stay out of each other’s way for the most part, or generally just don’t speak unless they have to, and they keep to different rooms, stay out of sight. Walker sleeps on the couch with no complaint, just turns in early, takes care of all of his pills and personal issues. John feels more and more like a monster, bringing in the woman, invading her apartment with red wine and sweet kisses that feel like nothing at all. He doesn’t care for the first few times, but the weight is heavy on him now, while he sits with her in the living room, their fingers twined and her with her legs folded gently over his, hogging the couch and feeling monstrous…

He sees Martin as he passes through the hall, head down, trying not to look, but he does, and the sudden shock of pain it sends through John’s body is almost unimaginable. He shudders, and Sandy notices, gently catches his chin in her hands to try and kiss it away. It only makes the shame worse. He thinks suddenly that he has become a monster… He’s driving Martin away with something stupid… something he never should have done.

“I’m just… I’m not feeling it,” he murmurs softly with her hands on his chest, her worried eyes boring into him. She nods gently.

Her words are not important… but he gets the feeling that when she hugs him instead of their customary kiss, she’s saying goodbye. She holds, and he holds her in return, and for the first time, for the first moment in the week they’ve spent together this way, he feels something. He feels sorry, so he whispers it softly in her ear, a hard hand slipping up to get lost in her hair.

She just laughs, but it’s such a sad sound, the music of wind chimes. It almost sounds like the caress of a breeze through the leaves. “I knew it’d happen. Just didn’t think it would be sooner rather than later.” She pauses a moment, then gently runs her nails through his razored-down hair, gentle scratching over his scalp. “But it’s alright. I’m always there next door. The girl next door. If you ever need anything, I’m always there.”

He nods, breathless as she picks herself up and quietly slips out. He’s alone. The air is heavy.

Perhaps it’s the silence that tricks him, the closing of the door, but Martin emerges into the living room, padding over to the bookshelf to pick through titles. He nearly jumps out of his skin when John moves a little… just the minute pull of fabric seeming so loud in the confined space.

“You’re… not going with her?” he asks quietly.

John only shakes his head. He is perched on the couch, looking at a small shard of terracotta that escaped the broom all that time ago… It stares back at him, and he doesn’t even understand why, but he feels it digging into him, blaming him for its horrible, untimely demise, for the terrible emptiness it felt. For the first time in months, he’s thinking about Dubai. His teeth bite into his bottom lip, and the pain is a temporary way to clear his mind. He feels Martin settle beside him, close, but just out of reach.

John stays for a long while before tearing his eyes away from the shard. Martin is watching him, all cold blue eyes, but they are so gentle he can almost imagine they’re like the ocean… they hold so many memories… so many regrets. John moves like a wretched thing, slow and low, dark. He’s not pushed away. There is no ambivalence… only gentle arms that do not give forgiveness because they don’t seem to remember any wrong that was ever done to them. John is just a silent, small thing, curling up against a mountain of a man. He feels shame, but if Walker feels anything, it seems to be far from that.

“I said I’d take care of you…” John whispers, his face half hidden in Martin’s worn t-shirt. Every breath is rich, vaguely perfumed with some sort of very masculine soap.

“Yeah?” Martin actually chuckles, warm and accepting. “You say a lot of shit, you know… Just thought I’d remind you. I mean, your eyes are brown, right?”

John grumbles and punches him in the ribs with no real force.

“Asshole.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot…” he murmurs softly, a heavy hand smoothing hard ribs, fingers gently fitting themselves into the little indentations between muscles like they’ve always belonged there. “Someone’s gotta be a dick around here. You lost your edge.”

“You suck,” John murmurs softly, nuzzling in close to Martin’s chest where there’s nothing but his scent and the velvety soft crush of breaths, the gentle thump of a heartbeat he’s learned to love even though he’s rarely ever been this close. Martin’s hand is so gentle, so soft as it traces a few little scars here and there that have started to fade olive like his skin. A golden god, carved and clean here, and Lugo opens his eyes to watch the subtle dance of muscle and tendon along Martin’s sunkissed forearm. He catches that hand in one of his own, gently drawing it close to him to kiss scarred knuckles.

It’s the way muscles tense that makes John’s heart fall. The terracotta shard. The dig. Martin is not here. There is Walker, cold and calculating, but unsure now of what to do. John holds on as if it’s the only thing he has left. So he speaks, low and soft, knowing he’s going to have to press action upon his former captain, the man he is so hopelessly bound to.

“Humor me,” he pleads softly. “You’re…”

Two fingers press light against his lips.

“You don’t need to explain yourself,” Martin sighs, not unkindly, but there’s some rift that’s formed… whether it’s between them or in his own mind, John doesn’t know, but he listens as if it’s an order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all hate me sufficiently for this.


	11. A Whisper

It’s nearly midnight, and John is tucked in close to Martin’s chest, his dark eyes lightly shut, soothed by the weight of Martin’s hand as he strokes slowly through John’s short hair. It’s become a part of the nightly routine. Martin no longer has to sandwich himself up against the wall, and John doesn’t feel the need to start falling off the edge of the bed. He sleeps a little better, even if there’s no real change in Martin’s schedule. For almost a month, John has said nothing, and Martin has mostly kept to himself about how he feels about the situation. He bears with the occasional crossing of lines that John is prone to, his position on the matter always remaining unvoiced and very safely secret. He never turns John away.

He rarely ever asks questions either, and it’s comfortable that way, though on this particular evening, when he lowers his heavy head a little and whispers in John’s ear, there is something different about the tone, the context.

“Why?”

John picks himself up a little, sleepy, processing the simple question, but seeming like he doesn’t quite know just what to say, how to answer a question that’s begging about a million others just in the asking. He looks up to Martin’s tired face, touching his jaw lightly, questioningly for a moment, then realizes that he’s not going to get any satisfaction from this… he has a feeling he knows what Martin is trying to ask, and he almost doesn’t want to humor it. _Why me?_ That’s what he’s asking. John thinks for a moment before he reaches up to cradle Martin’s scarred face in hands that look like they’ve been through hell and back.

“Because you’re… you’re Walker. You saved me. You made mistakes, sure… but we all do, Martin,” he murmurs soft, knowing exactly what’s going through Martin’s mind. It’s written in dark emotions all over his face. He opens his mouth, but something stirs in John, and he springs, sealing his lips over Martin’s holding tight. It’s like all the air goes out of the colossal man. He just settles back into sheets, and when John pulls himself back to look, he can see that there’s no fight in him, just a dark sort of apathy.

It’s heartbreaking. John does his best to just tuck himself in close, closes his eyes.

“You should get away from me…” Martin almost whispers, a heavy hand starting its trick again, stroking the back of John’s neck, occasionally stopping to slip around, brush the hint of a scar that will linger… that reminds them both. “You should run… as fast as you can. I’ll kill you one day, John. I know it. I’ll be the death of you.”

John knows there’s a million cliche things he could say now… that he’s never going to leave… that he won’t run away or something like that, that he’ll always love Martin… but he knows better. He just sighs softly, opts for what he feels the most at the moment.

“Guess I’m fucked, then.”

It’s so simple that it seems to derail the way Martin was thinking. His huge hand halts, warm on John’s skin, and the big man makes a soft sound, as though he was about to say something and then lost track of what it was.

“Besides,” John interjects before he has the chance, “You aren’t a fucking psychic. I don’t see any fucking crystal balls and tarot cards. So say what you want, sappy old fuck. I think you’ll treat me just fucking fine.”

They fall silent, and in that, John finally drifts off, his arms still wrapped around Martin’s huge frame, and Martin does his best to hold him in return, knowing that John likes it, likes being held close, perhaps because it makes him feel safe. There’s no arguing with him, really. John is his own person, and he always will be, but Martin wonders briefly if there’s any merit in arguing that he doesn’t… well, he’s never really felt anything for another man before… At least not that he really honestly knows of. He likes John, but he doesn’t think it’s anything to do with any kind of romantic attachment - and that’s clearly what John is wishing it will be. He attempts to inventory his thoughts on the matter. He’s fairly aware that he had no real goals in his life other than to further his military career… make something of himself that way. He thinks maybe he would have settled down with a nice woman… had a few kids. There’s not really any room for another man in that, but he thinks to himself that maybe there wasn’t really that strong inhibition that most guys he knew seemed to have, but Lugo had slept with a girl not even a month ago, so he thinks maybe black and white definitions don’t work here.

He shifts a little, slipping a hand under to tilt John’s chin up, peering down at his silent, relaxed face, thinking hard. He touches John’s lips gently, thumb tracing, still thinking hard, not really sure what to feel, but he does feel something. It’s there, whether or not he likes it. His thumb continues to trace for some time, remembering just what they felt like on his… It was much more pleasant than he would ever admit out loud, but not at all like kissing a woman. Not the same, but not at all in a bad way.

Maybe this isn’t something so black and white at all, though he knows for sure that he’s never really felt this way about anyone else before. It’s beyond the strong sense of brotherhood he had with Adams… Far beyond what he felt for anyone else, and much more real than anything he had with any girls he can think of. It’s just… not what he was expecting in a lot of ways.

It’ll take time to figure this all out… and until then, he thinks, as he begins to drift off, he’ll have to keep John in line as best he can. As much as he would like things to just hurry up and get underway, Martin just needs the time to really collect himself, think this through. He gathers himself and settles in, stares at the street lights’ thin orange light cast against the wall until he drifts off.

He dreams of sand and regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not in the mood to read back through this right now... any major editing should be done at a later date anyway... possibly when I figure out just exactly how to wrap this up to my satisfaction... As always, comments, criticism, maybe even a little hate will be much appreciated. We like to hear your feedback. I'm most curious to hear theories on just where this is going. (Other than just straight down into a sloppy heap of smut, which I am desperately trying to avoid at this point in time. I'm sorry to those of you who would actually rather enjoy that...)
> 
> But yes. Another chapter will happen once I get my head out of the horrible trap that is Viscera Cleanup Detail. Until then, be excellent to one another~


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